Page 32 of My Mountain Man Stalker
He backhands me so fast I don’t even see it coming. Pain explodes across my cheek and I taste blood again.
The girls gasp.
I don’t cry.
Iwon’t.
“Still full of fire,” he mutters, standing. “Good. The clients like that. Bids are already coming in. You’ll fetch a high price.”
My stomach lurches.
“You’re sick,” I spit.
“No,” he says, turning his back like he’s bored. “I’m rich.”
He walks away, whistling, tossing commands to the men behind him in a language I don’t recognize. The two masked men stay. Watching.
I lean toward the girls. “Listen to me. When they move us, that’s our chance. That’s when people make mistakes. Doors open. Ties get cut. If we can run, werun.Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Find cover, scream your lungs out, andfight.”
Tessa’s crying again, but she nods. Jo’s jaw is tight. The quiet one—Alina, I think she said her name was—just watches. Like she’s already cataloging exits. I like her.
I bite at the inside of my wrist, trying to weaken the zip tie. My skin splits. I don’t care. I need blood. Lubrication.Anything.
I’m not going to be sold.
I’m not going to be someone’s trophy.
I am going tomake it out of here.
And then I’m going to watch Hale burn this whole fucking operation to the ground.
13
Hale
Cold wind slaps across the trees as we roar down the back road toward the warehouse, the truck loaded with more firepower than a SWAT team and enough rage in the cab to light up a city block.
The intel came from a local sheriff Nate has in his pocket. Someone who lost a niece to a trafficking ring two years ago and never stopped digging. He got a partial license plate hit outside an old meat-packing plant two counties over—abandoned for years, now sealed up with padlocks and lies.
Micah grunts beside me as he checks his rifle. “This is the place. Feels wrong. Feelsright.”
“It’s them,” I say, voice low.
Nate leans in from the backseat. “I pulled a layout of the structure—north entry, two side exits, upper catwalk that runs the whole length. Two heat signatures outside, minimum four inside, not counting the girls.”
My jaw locks. “One of them is her.”
Ifeelit in my bones.
We pull into the treeline, lights off. Micah kills the engine. The world goes quiet except for the wind and the quietclicksof gear locking into place.
I strap on my chest plate, load my mags. Gloves. Comms. Earpiece. I pull my jacket tight, feel the press of the photo in my chest pocket—the picture of Wren her father gave me years ago. She was only eighteen. Smiling, arms around a puppy bigger than she was. God, she’d kill me if she knew I carried it.
But I never stopped.
Never stopped watching. Never stopped loving her.
Yeah.Loving.
